Summary of the Dissertation

On September 29, 2025, Johannes Plaum, a doctoral candidate under Prof. Eric Sax, successfully defended his dissertation titled: “Clearance Decision-Making in Highly Automated Commercial Vehicles Compared to Human Drivers.” Automated driving promises enormous opportunities for safety, comfort, and efficiency. Yet one of the greatest challenges remains: How do we provide credentials that demonstrate that highly automated vehicles are safe—and safe enough that society trusts them? In his thesis, Johannes Plaum develops a structured process to transparently link acceptance criteria—which demonstrate the absence of undue risk—to scenarios and real-world data, always using human drivers as a reference.